Short Notices [pp. 580-590]

Short Notices.
language, and naturalized, as beef, veal, mutton, from boeuf,
veau, mouton. This would only go to show that at one time
there was a connection between the nations speaking these languages; what that connection was, may frequently be inferred
from the kind of words introduced in this manner; thus,
the words here cited would imply, as Wamba expounds, that
each of these animals (viz. the ox, the calf, the sheep,) "is Saxon
when he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he
becomes matter of enjoyment;" in other words, that the conquering race, and, in consequence, the higher classes were Normans, whilst the conquered race or the lower classes were Saxons. The same thing would be testified to, if it were found
that ecclesiastical and legal terms are French, whilst those
referring to common life are Saxon. Again, when we find that
the English red is in German roth (pronounced rote), deadtodt (pronounced tote), lead-loth (pronounced lote), and find
a similar uniformity prevailing in the modification of many
other words thus belonging to the two languages, with such
slight changes as the one pointed out, we shall justly infer that
the ancestors of the English and the German must have spoken
the same language, and that the present difference of their
languages must have arisen from a continued separation in
space, which now is still producing the different dialects in one
and the same country. But if we find that the English word
sack is in German sack, in French sac, in Spanish and Portuguese saco, in Italian sacco, in Latin saccus, in Greek oxxo;,
in Dutch zak, in Danish saek, in Swedish sack, in Welsh and
Irish sac, Cornish zah, Armorican sach, Anglo-Saxon sec,
Hungarian saak, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Ethiopic sak, Coptic
sok, Polish sak, etc., etc., we may at first attempt to show
that one nation derived the use of the thing together with its
name from another nation. But this expedient will fail, when
we find such instances of the wide prevalence of a single word
for the same thing, not to be rare; or when it is unlikely or impossible for one reason or another that one nation should have
borrowed the term from another, or when the nations are so
widely separated that such a conclusion would be preposterous.
The only legitimate inference would be that this and similar
instances are but the scattered relics of an original unity of
languages, a conclusion which forms one of the grand results
of comparative philology. Still, if we were able to show that
such identity or similarity of sound applied to designate the
same thing, arose from something in the human mind and the
organs of speech, which necessitated man to use it whenever
and wherever he wished to designate such a thing, the argu
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